[ExI] Deuteronomy Chapter 13/was Re: Mary Magdelene?
Dan
dan_ust at yahoo.com
Mon Jun 8 17:31:45 UTC 2009
--- On Fri, 6/5/09, Dan <dan_ust at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I'm not so sure. People claiming to be members of
> both faiths have committed genocides and all lesser
> crimes. If one were to look for frequencies here, then
> I'm not so sure the data would support either being better
> or worse. That said, Christians and Muslims living in
> modern secularized societies tend to be, on the whole, more
> peaceful than either living in non-secular societies,
> especially ones dominated by fanatics from their particular
> religion. The great mass of Muslims -- like the great
> mass of Christians or the great mass of people in general --
> appear to be peaceful under most circumstances. I mean
> they are not, to my knowledge, carrying out this passage --
> one you're probably familiar with, given your knowledge of
> Islam:
>
> "If you hear it said about one of the towns given to you to
> live in that wicked men have arisen among you and have led
> the people of their town astray, saying, "Let us go
> and worship other gods," then you must inquire, probe and
> investigate it thoroughly. And if it is true and it
> has been proved that this detestable thing has been done
> among you, you must certainly put to the sword all who live
> in that town. Destroy it completely, both its people and its
> livestock. Gather all the plunder of the town into the
> middle of the public square and completely burn the town and
> all its plunder... It is to remain a ruin forever,
> never to be rebuilt."
>
> Are they?
Someone responded off list that this was not from the Koran. And that person was right! It's actually from Deuteronomy:
http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0513.htm
(Of course, I used a different translation.)
Does everyone agree that the passage calls for genocide against believers of other religions? Is anyone here ready to use this passage -- part of both the Hebrew and standard Christian Bibles -- to tar all Jews or Christians as genocidal?* I hope not! And, if not, why not use the same logic with Muslims?
Regards,
Dan
* Granted, almost all members of both those faiths -- and their sects -- can use some form of interpretation to say that this passage is no longer in effect. My guess is most Jews and Christians are unaware of the passage -- or have not focused on it. (I bring up the latter because many a Bible-thumper I've met can quote quite a number of verses from the Bible, but usually don't put them together in any rigorous way. This is why, e.g., the sort of parallel reading of the Gospels shows inconsistencies -- inconsistencies that any serious reader of the Bible would find, but that most simply are unaware of even having read the inconsistent passages. So why are they unaware? I can only think that the Bible is long and like most works people are no keeping in mind each detail with a mind to spotting mistakes. This is no different than, say, someone reading Raymond Chandler's novel _The Big Sleep_ and missing that one of the murders is never solved at
the end.)
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